Cuomo Plan Seeks to End New York's AIDS Epidemic

Borrowing an idea from leading AIDS researchers, the Cuomo administration said on Friday that it had developed a plan to aggressively identify, track and treat people with H.I.V. infection with the aim of reducing new infection to the point that by 2020, AIDS would no longer reach epidemic levels in New York State.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office plans to publicly announce the new measures — a result of months of negotiation with AIDS activists as well as several significant changes to state H.I.V. testing laws — on Sunday, aides said, on the same day as New York City's Gay Pride Parade.

The Cuomo administration described the effort as reflecting a once unimaginable sea change in thinking since the first cases of AIDS were reported among gay men, mostly in the city, by the Centers for Disease Control in July 1981. It has gone from a mysterious plague to a disease that experts can envision one day vanquishing. Continue reading…